Weddingbee Blog

I feel like 90% of what I am referring to as wedding planning is really reception planning. Since Mr. Cannon and I are having a pretty traditional religious ceremony, there hasn’t been a lot of planning in that arena, and for that reason I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it. I mean, yes, I know we need to pick out a few Bible verses and things, but in many ways it feels like the ceremony is almost an afterthought in the context of everything else.

But while looking through the sample ceremonies and thinking about what is actually going to happen on our wedding day, it finally hit me. I am most likely going to cry at the wedding. I was getting teary eyed reading through the sample ceremonies in the parking lot of Pizza Hut. A lot of people say things like, “Don’t get too caught up in the wedding—it’s all about the marriage!” By which I believe they mean that the wedding planning and the party and whatnot are one day of the rest of your lives, so don’t put too much stock into it. That hasn’t been a problem for me because the marriage is really the important part in my mind. Mr. Cannon will be husband forever! I can’t wait!

But within all of that, I hadn’t really considered the enormity of the actual ceremony. Obviously, throughout our relationship we have had many promises and obligations to one another, but they have mostly been unsaid and merely implied. The wedding ceremony is my chance to vocalize those promises, and vow to uphold them for the rest of my life in front of God and everyone. It’s a powerful moment. It’s being decisive and making a choice and having the confidence to say how you feel and what you want. Honestly, as patriarchal as the history of marriage is, the ceremony feels like it will be a very feminist moment. It’s saying, “I have the choice to marry any man or no man, but I choose you.” And it’s not an inconsequential choice—it’s a lifelong commitment. It’s saying, “I’ve changed my mind about everything from my favorite color to my faith in God dozens of times over my short life, but I know I won’t change my mind about having you in it ever.” In every way, it really is a huge, powerful, important, emotional decision.

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When looking for readings for our ceremony, we thought about borrowing a page from well-loved books from our childhood. Mr. PaC found two semi-suitable Shel Silverstein poems, but I nixed them since they felt more appropriate for a graduation speech or anniversary toast (”Listen to the Mustn’ts” and “The Folks Inside,” respectively).

Image via: OneWed / Photographer: Kevin Mullins Photography

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I’ve searched the world over for wedding-day readings. I have read all umpteen pages over at Indie Bride. Most of the common wedding passages are just not our style, so…I wrote a few of my own.

I don’t know why I did this. Actually, I take that back. I know why I did it, but I don’t know why I’m sharing these on the Internet. I guess as a way to show you all that you can DIY your ceremony too. If there’s no reading that fits you…make one!

So, here is my first go at a reading for the ring exchange. I focused on what the ring meant to me—in one way, it means very little. It’s just a material object. But what it symbolizes means everything to me. Then I made it rhyme because I was feeling crazy.
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“And the tree was happy”

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One of my favorite books of all time is Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. It is a heartfelt story that has inspired me all my life.

As we began planning our day, I racked my brain trying to find some way to incorporate this touching story into our celebration.

And then I saw it!
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For the most part, Mr. S and I are on the same page when it comes to our wedding. There are a few things we’ve disagreed on, and we’re learning the art of compromise.

One of the things we’re trying to compromise on is whether or not we’re going to have any readings at the ceremony. Mr. S is against it. He wants the ceremony to be as quick as possible so that we can go on to the party. I agree that I want a quick ceremony—10–15 minutes, tops—but I think that we can devote a minute or two of that time to a beautiful, touching secular reading.

We’ve tabled the debate for now, but if we decide to go for a reading, here are some of my faves:
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“Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences. “

- Sylvia Plath

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With our little beach wedding seven months away, I’ve decided to begin the inspiration search for my vows.

Having a writer for a fiance makes the vow-writing process an intimidating adventure. Over our ten-year love story, Mr. Ostrich has made my heart skip a beat with just a few words (and silly drawings) in birthday, Valentine, and holiday cards. He’s truly a master of the English language, and I can only imagine that his vows won’t leave a dry eye in the house.
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When it came to planning for our actual ceremony, there were three main things to consider: the vows, the readings, and the music.  I’ll be talking about the music later, so let’s discuss the vows and readings today, shall we?

The vows were the easiest part to nail down. We will not be writing our own vows, but instead using the traditional vows that have been used for many, many years before us. Both Mr. E and I are extremely lucky to have parents who have been married for over 30 years, and we wanted to use the same vows that they used on their wedding days and still ring true years later.

With the vows taken care of, we moved on to the readings. Although Mr. E is more spiritual than into organized religion, we decided to have one reading from the Bible and one from another source. I have always loved hearing 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 at weddings, so that will be our scripture reading.

The other reading took a little more research. Enter Google. I Googled “popular wedding readings” and read…and read…and read some more, until I found a couple that could be contenders. Some of my favorites included an excerpt from Nicholas Sparks’s book The Notebook as well as the poem “True Love” by an unknown author.

But nothing touched me like “The Art of a Good Marriage” by Wilfred Arlan Peterson.
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In the past year, I’ve been to two amazingly beautiful non-religious ceremonies. I loved how personal they were. Having a non-religious ceremony can open the door to so many possibilities where the couple’s love can really shine through. I’ve seen it done through non-traditional readings, song choices and vows.

In the Catholic Church, you just don’t have as many options. You need to pick a reading from the old testament, a reading from the new testament, a reading from the gospel, and Catholic hymns. The one place we have been able to personalize is in the prayers of the faithful. Because we have to choose from approved lists, it makes for less personalization. I don’t want this to sound negative against the Catholic Church, because we chose to get married in the Church knowing this. Having our ceremony in the church was our top priority and meant more to us than having the option of total personalization. It actually means a lot to me to follow my Church’s traditions and repeat the same vows that many others have used before. I don’t want to take the ceremony lightly. While I want the ceremony to be about our faith, I want it to also represent us as a couple.

When it came time to choose the reading from the Old Testament, I struggled with many of the readings in the Old Testament related to men and women. I ended up finding a reading from the book of Ruth.
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In November we will be meeting with the minister who will be marrying us (my uncle) to finalise the ceremony details, so by then Mr E and I need to have a fairly good idea of how we want everything to go. We have always wanted to write a large portion of the ceremony ourselves, so we have designated an hour every Sunday afternoon from now until November to focus solely on that. That way we can take our time, and really just enjoy the process without stress.

We had our first “date” for it this last Sunday, and we had so much fun talking about our ideas! I think it was the moment when we both realised, “wow, we’re really getting married soon…how awesome is that?!”

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Anyway, the first “bits” of the ceremony we have managed to settle on are the readings.

We chose three: one that is very “me” that I will read to Mr E, one that is very “Mr E” for him to read to me, and one that is very “us” that a friend of ours will read at the end of the ceremony.
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Most of our wedding ideas thus far have revolved around the reception.  We’ve had our first dance song picked out since before we got engaged, I had imagined exactly what I wanted our centerpieces to look like, and have I mentioned the food? I suppose this is pretty normal for most brides, but I find it ironic because, to me, the ceremony is the most important part of a wedding.

Here’s my confession: the ceremony kinda intimidated me.

Source: The Flirty Guide

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It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk about the actual ceremony portion of our wedding. I think this is the most wide-open detail of the day so I’ve really dreaded putting pen to paper, so to speak, and writing out what will go down. It’s also touchy for me because I know Mr. G’s parents won’t be there to celebrate with us which makes me want to cry! It would be really nice to have both of our parents there but Mr. G’s parents will be with us in spirit; I’ll leave it at that.

We won’t be having a religious ceremony as Mr. G is atheist and I’m Buddhist, but want to keep it as neutral as possible. And oh yeah, we’ll already be married! See what I mean by wide-open? All the traditional things that usually happen at a ceremony don’t need to happen at ours!

We need to pick an “officiant” of sorts who can at least MC what’s going to happen. We want our ceremony to be silly and fun and emotional and meaningful. Just how will we accomplish this?
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Remember how I’m in love with I Like You? Remember how I wanted to have part of it read at our wedding ceremony? Well, das not gonna happen.

Yesterday, we planned out our ceremony with our minister, and we just couldn’t find a spot for it. Even after shortening, it still never found a good place as not to break up the flow of the whole ceremony. So, like the take-action bride that I now have [sort of?] become, I Like You has landed on the cutting room floor. Never fear, we still have two other lovely readings, one of which was non-negotiable in our original plan, and another that we chose from the Bible. We are getting married in a church, after all.

Our first reading, to be read by our minister, is Song of Solomon 8:6-7. Mr. Scissors and I had several SoS and Ecclesiastes readings picked out, but this was the one we agreed to be the best and most appropriate for us.
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I think my obsession with quotes truly began in college. Instead of putting up away message on AIM that said what I was doing or when I’d be back, I always had some type of quote. The first few semesters they were mostly friendship quotes, but later my obsession turned to love quotes. Today, I have a pretty substantial quote collection.

I want to somehow incorporate quotes into the wedding. I have been going through my list of quotes and searching for new ones. I’m not sure where I will use them yet, but there are plenty of places I can think of, including:

• Wedding website
• Save the dates
• Invitations
• Programs
• Thank yous
• Scrapbook
• Flip flop basket
• Signage
• ‘Will you be my bridesmaid?’ cards
• Vows
• Speeches
• Guestbook

A few of my favorite movie quotes on love:
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Mr. Argyle and I really hope that both our best man and maid of honor give a toast at our reception. Oddly enough, it was them who introduced me to Mr. Argyle three years ago. I have a feeling we’ll hear about how we owe them (and we do). But I also have a feeling there will be laughter and tears.

So, in true bride spirit, I started searching for toast ideas myself. I know MOH Argyle would probably ask what she would want me to say (I love that girl). And, during my search I found this cute one from Weddingbee PRO. Although it is a poem, I think it’s adorable to use, especially since we can relate – Mr. Argyle and I have two dogs. It seems a little long for a toast, but you could use excerpts instead of the entire thing.

Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog, by Taylor Mali

First of all, it’s a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York [note - this could be changed to fit the city you live in]
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you’re walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain’t no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?
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We met with our officiant, aka my hometown pastor, over Labor Day weekend. It was our second and final meeting with him before our big day.

During our meeting, we went over our “marriage inventory”.
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